American politics

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Enlightened intolerance

EARLIER this month Brandeis University rescinded its offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born women’s rights activist, saying its officials had not been fully aware of some her more scathing remarks on Islam. Conservatives have accused Brandeis of muzzling Ms Hirsi Ali and bowing to Muslim pressure groups. Liberals have wondered how the university could possibly have overlooked Ms Hirsi Ali’s condemnations, not just of radical Islam, but of Islam as such. At the risk of coming off as a postmodern multi-culti squish, it seems to me that this discussion suffers from a lack of cultural context—but not the cultural context you’re thinking of. The way Ms Hirsi Ali talks about Islam strikes American liberals as strangely intolerant, but it has its roots in the prevailing discourse on religious freedom and Islam in the country where Ms Hirsi Ali first began seriously tackling these issues: the Netherlands.

As Ms Hirsi Ali noted in an interview on Fox News, the most-cited of her objectionable statements on Islam came in a 2007 interview with Reason magazine. In that interview she said it was necessary to “defeat” Islam and that ”we are at war with Islam”, including in the military sense of the word. In another 2007 interview, with the London Evening Standard, she called Islam “the new fascism” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death”. Characterising an entire religion in this way is considered entirely beyond the pale in educated American society; while some small right-wing or evangelical Christian organisations demonise Islam as an enemy, mainstream conservatives, and for that matter neoconservatives, characterise only radical Islam as a threat. Actually, bigotry against Muslims in America is common enough, but the public expression of such prejudice by figures of authority is taboo. Wholesale condemnations of existing religions just aren’t done in American politics. Once-open prejudices against Catholics and Jews were gradually wrung out of the public sphere in a process that started in the 1940s and was essentially wrapped up by the 1970s. The explicit consensus in America is ecumenical and strongly pro-religious, and Americans generally sense that when they single out one faith and aggressively criticise its spiritual content, they’re violating a national ethical code.

This is not quite the case in the Netherlands, where Ms Hirsi Ali developed her feminist critique of Islam and served as an MP for the centre-right Liberal party. To recap her story: Ms Hirsi Ali came to the Netherlands in 1992, fleeing an arranged marriage in Kenya. She was granted refugee status and ultimately a Dutch passport, and earned a master’s degree that led her into outreach work with Muslim immigrant women, initially in affiliation with the Labour party. Her politics shifted steadily rightward, due in part to the repression of women she saw in immigrant communities and in part to the September 11th attacks. In 2004 she made a deliberately provocative, rather surreal short film decrying Muslim oppression of women with the bomb-throwing TV director and personality Theo van Gogh; in response, a young Muslim extremist murdered Mr van Gogh. With her extraordinary charisma and impressively elegant Dutch, Ms Hirsi Ali was ultimately invited to run for parliament by the centre-right Liberals, and served from 2003 until 2006, when a scandal over her immigration status (she admitted to having concealed her name and lied about other details) led the hard-line interior minister to revoke her Dutch passport. She moved to America shortly thereafter, taking a job at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. (The affair, incidentally, precipitated the fall of the Dutch government.)

Returning to the theme: while the way Ms Hirsi Ali talks about Islam sounds extreme to the American ear, it doesn’t sound as extreme to the Dutch ear. To take the most obvious example, Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), has been calling for banning the Koran since 2007. To legitimate this sort of language, Mr Wilders has advanced the novel claim that Islam is not a religion at all, but a totalitarian ideology. Of course, Mr Wilders leads the farthest-right party in the Dutch political landscape, one with which most Dutch parties have refused to cooperate. Nevertheless, most Dutch citizens don't see Mr Wilders’ PVV as an extreme-right party. This is incomprehensible to Americans: a party that calls for banning the Koran and terms Islam a totalitarian ideology seems by definition extreme-right in an American context. Yet intelligent, tolerant mainstream Dutch and Americans can go back and forth on this question in utter bafflement.

And Mr Wilders doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He launched the PVV in 2006, after dropping out of the Liberal party just when Ms Hirsi Ali was becoming one of its biggest stars. A few years earlier, Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyantly gay populist politician, had blazed the trail for such language by terming Islam a “backward religion”. Beginning with Mr Fortuyn’s rise in 2001, Dutch politics was seized by an impulse to cast off “politically correct” taboos on negative characterisations of (mainly Muslim) immigrants, and to “name the real problems” of crime, failure to integrate, and suppression of the rights of women and gays among immigrant communities. Ms Hirsi Ali’s sharp anti-Muslim language did not spring out of nowhere; she was part of this broader shift in Dutch politics and political language.

At a deeper level, while the Netherlands has long been renowned for, or even defined by, its religious tolerance, the Dutch variety of tolerance is not the same as the American one. For example, I’ve repeatedly encountered non-religious Dutch who see no difference between a religion and a belief or opinion, and feel that religions therefore don’t deserve any kind of special consideration, be it in terms of schooling, of exemptions from public rules and duties, or of conversational deference or respect. That view may be shared in certain emphatically atheist quarters in America, but it seems much more widespread in the Netherlands. To some extent this may be rooted in the much lower level of Dutch religiosity; 21% of Dutch believe in God, against 61% of Americans, and Dutch religiosity declined markedly from 1991-2008. And while Americans who do not actually go to church often nevertheless identify with some denomination on a family basis, Dutch who do not believe or worship tend to describe themselves simply as having no religion. One sometimes gets the sense that non-religious Dutch are so alienated from religious tradition that they lack empathetic understanding of what belonging to a faith is like.

But then, the bargains entailed in the Dutch tradition of religious tolerance have always worked differently than those in America. From the late 19th century to the 1960s, the Dutch hewed to a social system called “pillarisation”, in which the country’s Protestant and Catholic communities lived, studied and voted in largely segregated blocs, each with their own schools, newspapers, and political parties. The socialist movement formed a third, non-religious bloc. The blocs were often openly disdainful of each other, and it’s not surprising that the Dutch tend to be more willing than Americans to bluntly criticise the substance of others’ religions, just as they might criticise a political ideology. Even in the 17th century, when the Netherlands became a haven for religious refugees from the 30 Years’ War and the Inquisition, tolerance was largely seen as a pragmatic virtue, good for business, so long as those with alien faiths kept their houses of worship out of sight. One might look even further back: many of the Netherlands’ firmest critics of religion belong to the country’s strong Humanist movement, which traces its roots to the atheistic or pan-theistic philosophy of that greatest apostate of Amsterdam’s Jewish community, Baruch Spinoza. The intellectual historian Jonathan Israel makes Spinoza the model for what he terms the “radical” wing of the European Enlightenment, which totally rejected religious authority, in contrast to more moderate figures such as Descartes; and one can hear some echoes of Spinoza in Ms Hirsi Ali’s uncompromising turn away from, and finally complete rejection of, her native Islam.

The interview in which Ms Hirsi Ali called for a “war” on Islam came in 2007, just a year after she had left the Netherlands. In deciding to rescind its offer of an honorary degree to her, Brandeis was in part drawing a line between the kind of discourse on religion that is acceptable in mainstream American intellectual life, and the kind that has arisen over the past decade and a half in the Netherlands. The university was not silencing Ms Hirsi Ali; it still invited her to come to the university to “engage in a dialogue”. As Isaac Chotiner puts it, the “controversy isn't about shunning someone from polite society. It is about giving a person an honorary degree.” Asking Ms Hirsi Ali to speak to students at Brandeis is a great idea; giving her an honorary degree as part of graduation ceremonies suggests that Brandeis thinks calling for a war on Islam is an acceptable statement within the bounds of normal political and social discourse. The fact that such statements are not welcomed in American public discourse is one reason why the American model of integration and tolerance works better than the Dutch model, and why the Netherlands continues to be wracked by tensions over Islam and integration—years after those tensions forced Ms Hirsi Ali herself to leave.

Readers' comments

Muslims are better than Americans and they themselves are better than the Dutch. Westerners do not have to delude themselves regarding which civilization and ethnicity is so war-crime guilty. (For instance, just ask Putin by whom he feels threatened by)

Ms Hersi Ali is a heroine of the first order. She was abused as a child and mutilated n the name of Islam, and is now one of the few with the courage to stand and tell the truth about a religion that daily abuses hundreds of millions of women across this planet. She stands to defend those women in the face of vile threats of murder in the name of Islam. Everyday in a vast number of Islamic countries more little girls are mutilated. Other women are killed or flogged for the crime of being raped. In most Islamic countries a women can be attacked openly in the street if she doesn't dare cover herself from head to foot, and in others women can't leave their home without a male relative or even drive a car. Even in the West Honor killings are not that uncommon. A father or a family will murder a female member of the family for looking at or dating someone of her choice. These are not some rare happenings, but are common place in many, even most, Islamic Countries where the worth of a female is less than that of a cow. That is what Ms Hersi Ali is bringing to light to make the plight of these women known so the horror cannot continue in the dark. So the world can't say it doesn't know. This is what she is at war with, and the reason radical terrorist linked Muslim organizations harass and demean her. What Brandeis did to this brave heroine was spit on all of those abused and oppressed women throughout the world. It was an atrocity and a mini-holocaust in and of itself. Brandeis folded to the kind of despicable evil pressure that caused good people to remain silent in Hitler's Germany, and there is no forgiveness for what they've done, only eternal shame and the laughter of dead Nazis from hell.

The left-most wing of the VVD ("Liberal" party) may be "centre-right" but the party stretches all the way to the far-right PVV.

I don't share the impression that exclusionist views attacking all Muslims for being Muslims, as held by Hirsi Ali and the Dutch far-right, are acceptable in mainstream Dutch political discourse.

The Dutch intolerance against intolerance (in this case, religion) is prevalent in most European countries, secular as they are. Problems with integrating migrants stem from national chauvinism, which still is depressingly common in Europe, rather than from unquestioning acceptance of the intolerance that comes with religious fervor, which the article appears to advocate.

"Enlightened" & "Enlightenment" sounds kind of pompous & self-glorifying... in any case; we have not yet learned to 'As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.' (Matthew 13:34) We are still a distance away from a proper equilibrium.

How about John 13:34 "...As I (Jesus) have loved you, so you also should love one another.” I meant John 13:34. You wouldn't have any one mutilating anyone else if everyone had love for one another. What good does hatred serve?

Brandeis University's decision to rescind Hirsi Ali's ( real name Hirsi Magaan ) degree is the right one. Hirsi is a fraudulent asylum seeker whose life story has already been openly debunked as a collection of fabrications by a 2006 Dutch television documentary that caused her to be expelled from the Netherlands.
American universities are not under any obligation to dole out honorary degrees to failed asylum seekers from Africa on the payroll of war mongerers like Hirsi's employers at the American Enterprise Institute, nor are they violating the basic tenets of academic freedom by rescinding degrees from people who make attacks into other's religions into a living.
At issue is not Hirsi's right to express her repellent views, fully protected as the are by the First Amendment, but rather the right of everyone else to distance themselves from them.

"The fact that such statements are not welcomed in American public discourse" is more a reflection of the belief that Americans have of being in the "land of the free". Which means specifically the land where people are free to practice their religion without being persecuted by the state.

America has always been a sink where the extremely, and often non-mainstream, religious could live in 'freedom'.

Nothing to do with better integration. Many religious factions do not integrate well in America. More to do with the historical concept of allowing the religious, no matter of which type, to go unmolested and 'be free' to be religious.

Firstly, I imagine Mrs. Ali’s statements have been colored by her own traumatic experiences and may lack a certain objectivity (as is the case with many trauma victims).
Secondly, I think that in the Netherlands the term ‘extreme-right’ always has a historical connotation and is often seen as comparing a party to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. Anytime the PVV has been called extreme right this has always lead to great outrage from mr. Wilders (who has long considered himself extremely pro-Israel and therefore disliked the association) and his followers.
Mr. Wilders has a history of rousing the public with one-liners and proposals can never be accepted as the infringe every European and national law we know. He makes very clever use of the psychological mechanism that allows us to think that everything used to be better in the past (most notably his quest to get our past currency, the Gulden, back).
Are there issues with the Muslim population in the Netherlands? Yes, for long we were woefully unprepared to handle large scale immigration (please note that many of the older Muslim immigrants were invited to work in the Netherlands) and didn’t see a need to integrate those who migrated here into society. Most of the, by now, third generation immigrants still live in separate communities and have language difficulties etc. Is the subpopulation to blame as well? Definitely,
but what I think is another main issue when talking about our Muslim communities and their growing extremism is that the Netherlands has somehow formed the notion that blaming an entire subpopulation for all issues in the country, constantly stereotyping them in a negative way and as such placing them entirely in an out-group role will somehow make them want to integrate more.
If that approach works then the Netherlands may very well be the first country to pioneer the technique of “inclusion by exclusion”.

I imagine your statements are colored by your own ignorance. Mrs. Ali knows first hand about what she is talking about. You certainly have absolutely no clue as to what a woman like her has been through.

You're right, I'm assuming that SOME of the personal history she recounted was actually true. There was a ZEMBLA (Dutch investigative television progam) episode on the story, maybe you should watch it so you can get a more complete picture of the person you are defending. As to your last claim (about me), don’t make assumptions about people of whom you don’t even know their real name, or their experiences. Personal attacks based on nothing aren't an intelligent way of getting your point across.

I think the writer does mrs Ali no justice by taking her words out of context.Muslims fail to integrate everywhere they go if its China,India,Burma,Thailand,Bosnia,Germany,France,Spain,Russia and we can continue, there is only one common feature among these very different societies and cultures and that is that the people causing the problems belong to the Islamic religion and state this as their motivation.And if the writer was being honest he would see the same thing in the USA.Cab drivers refusing to drive homosexuals or alcohol,Muslims bombing local marathons or planning to blow up Christmas celebrations,honor killings,muslims refusing to work the same hours due to prayer,refusing work related uniforms,denying peoples basic human rights attack7ng draw Muhammed cartoonists,attacking Comedy Central for featuring Muhammad in a Southpark episode.The whole reason the FBI and U.S. law enforcement failed to pick up the Boston marathon bomber was because they could not conceive that a Caucasus Muslim who is anti-Russian might for the very same reason be anti-US,namely Islamic Jihad.Authorities think it is about actual grievances so Jihadist terrorism is not motivated by theology but by U.S. troops in Iraq or someone using rude words or drawing cartoons.

I agree with you that all religions like Islam (and Christianity and Judaism) promote hatred. Religion should be banned - today Islam seems to be a problem. Only a few decades ago, Christianity was an issue. In the 20th century, 250 million people died violent deaths - 92% of these deaths were caused by Christians and Christian countries. Currently, the Jews are also a huge problem - practicing apartheid and illegally flaunting international law through expansionist Zionism. We have to ban these religions immediately.

Durendal, perhaps you do not realize the circular logic you are deploying here; you are actively advocating for socially and politically isolating Muslims from Western society while citing the social and political isolation of Muslims from Western society as justification for doing so. That is not an argument; that is an anti-Islamic tautology. It's the equivalent of someone arguing that "Going to church makes Christians unproductive on Sundays because going to church on Sundays is unproductive." Would that be a reasonable basis for arguing Christians are dragging down societal productivity and that they should be forced to work on Sundays regardless of their protests that it violates their religious freedom? I think not. That would be, as much of your post is, a mere instance of lazy thinking--as is religious extremism, not coincidentally.

The solution is not to isolate Muslims. It is to stop treating Muslims as special kind of people who could not be criticized or who should not be offended directly or indirectly for fear of the inevitable ensuing violence. Unfortunately, the PC social disease has plagued the Western world preventing it from affecting a constructive feedback mechanism needed for mutual respected integration.

>> the Jews are also a huge problem
Only if you are antisemitic. What huge problem in today's world is related to _Jews_? Jews are harassed and persecuted in many places around the world today but that is a huge problem the Jews _have_ (and had for more than a thousand years).

>> practicing apartheid and illegally flaunting
>> international law through expansionist Zionism

You might have meant 'Israelis', not Jews, but you'd be just as wrong. All Israel citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender are equal before the law. There are disputed territories in the West Bank where Palestinians plan to form a state and where they, for the most part, self govern. There is no apartheid in Israel nor in the Palestinian Authority.

As for expansionist Zionism, it is funny how Islam calls for the Muslims to establish the rule of Islam all over the world and this is not mentioned as expansionist while Israel which in its most expanded form possible would still fit under a single grain of rice on a world atlas is 'huge problem'.

The only way in which Israel can be described as Theocratic is by claiming that the current laws does not offer civil marriage, etc. so in family matters Jews are bound by Jewish religion (via Rabbis), Muslims by Islam (via Kadis) and Christians by the specific sect's rule (via a Priest or something). In this aspect, it is not too secular but it treat all religions equally (save for atheism which arguably is not a religion).

Compare this to Saudi Arabia which does not permit free practice of Christianity, have roads just for Muslims and bans Jews from entering the country.

I agree - Saudi Arabia is an awful country - like Israel, it is a theocratic state. However, your allegations are incorrect. My company has a small office in KSA - we have half a dozen staff members there, of which 1 is Indian (Hindu) and 2 are British (Christians). For convenience reasons, we have rented several apartments in the same building. The office van picks them up every morning - obviously, the van travels on the same road to get to the office. There are no roads just for Muslims.

They do not ban Jews from entering the country. Here are the visa requirements for a business visa:-

Our office gets business visas for our employees - we have never had a problem.

Yes, Israeli citizens will not get visas, because KSA does not recognize Israel. However, several dozen countries do not recognize Israel. In our Dubai office, we receive Israeli traders - we have a lot of business with them. To the best of my knowledge, they travel on their 2nd passports (e.g., USA, Canadian, etc.), because they would be forbidden entry on an Israeli passport.

As you are aware, in your country, the liberal left has been losing votes during the past 2 decades - and, consequently, the religious right has been gaining votes. Here is what happened in the last election:-

"Among the 3.8 million citizens who voted in the elections for the 19th Knesset, 528,000 supported Shas and United Torah Judaism, parties which take orders from rabbis who despite democracy and are longing for the day when the halacha will replace the laws being enacted by the people through their elected representatives. There is no significant difference between the vision of these parties and the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision.

In the last elections some 346,000 supported Habayit Hayehudi, a party which hails democracy. However, half of the MKs on its roster declare their subordination to rabbis and favor the supremacy of “Judaism” over democracy.

Among Likud’s supporters there are also those who are in favor of a regime that is guided by the halacha. They are not conservatives like the Christian parties that rule some countries in Europe. Rather, they are messianic religious Jews (Moshe Feiglin is the most eloquent of this lot) who are certain the people will eventually hand over to them the reins of government peacefully. Is this not what happened in Egypt?" - There’s no major difference between visions of ultra-Orthodox parties and Muslim Brotherhood By Yaron London, Ynet new Op-Ed, July 09, 2013.

Many Israeli's describe their own country as a theocracy - here is an interesting piece in Haaretz which describes Israel as a "xenophobic theocracy". Here is an excerpt from this article:

"And what did we get in the end? A country in which the only ones who can hope for something are those who believe in the morality of being an occupying nation or in the superiority of the Jews over all other peoples ‏(and there is overlap between the two groups‏), who want to live in a xenophobic theocracy, with a government in which the politicians − like Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid − ask not what they can do for the citizenry but what the citizenry can do for the state. For themselves, in other words. And so the politicians get angry at anyone who dares to make the sober decision to leave this place, to announce that he doesn’t want to continue working in a failed enterprise whose goals are far from his own. Instead of trying to improve the working conditions in this place and altering its goals, they get mad at those people. As Lapid has kept saying: There’s no place else in the world for Jews.

There may not be anywhere else in the world for middle-aged Jews. Our ability to find employment abroad is very limited. But if I were a few decades younger I’d would go and try to start anew somewhere else, not because it’s a lot cheaper to live, necessarily, but mainly because there it is still possible to dream, to plan a better future for one’s children. I failed in that. I’m leaving my children a much worse country than the one my parents left me."

I am aware that the liberal left has been loosing votes - I am part of that movement. I was in the Peace Now movement in the early 80s and I voted for the Meretz party. I am an atheist but am very proud of the Jewish culture to which I below.

I still fervently support human rights - just not the kind espoused by the UN's human rights commission and its deluded followers in is abusively called 'the progressive left'. I support secularism, equal opportunity, tolerance, cooperation, honesty and reason. Those qualities are sorely lacking in the public discourse in the West (and I am not even thinking about the rest where things are even worse).

Claiming that Israel is on the way to become a theocracy only shows one thing - that the claimer does not really understand Israel and the Israelies or that the claimer is misinformed by distorted media outlets with blatant anti-Israel agenda such as Ha'aretz, The BBC, The Guardain, The New Your Times among others.

You might have mentioned the death threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, her suffering of female genital mutilation as a young girl, and her fears that her own family would condemn her to death for apostasy - all in the name of Islam.
Ali lived in numerous Muslim states growing up and saw close hand what it meant to be a girl in these places - subjected to violence, denied education and suffering a level of oppression that the sheltered academics of Brandeis cannot imagine.
The woman knows her subject intimately.
As her critics do not.

Racist, sexist, gutless. I don't think there would be as much agreement on the left had Brandeis rescinded its honorary degree to Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris based on their equally incendiary statements about all religions. But a black woman targets Islam alone and suddenly it's unacceptable? Somehow it seems more hostile coming from a black woman, doesn't it? And attacking religion is perfectly acceptable but you can't single out Islam because, using the principle of cultural egalitarianism, no religion is any better or worse than another. Except Buddhism and Kabbalah. They're superior.

The lesson from this, the Mozilla incident, and the Tony Kushner incident is that tolerance is completely subjective. Some may practice absolute tolerance, defending the right of Holocaust deniers to give commencement addresses. But most of us have our own personal levels of tolerance and there's no way we can all agree on a universal standard. The best we can do is to try to explain why we set the bar here and learn to tolerant those who disagree.

We've come very far indeed from being a "verzuilde" (columnised, I hate "pillarization") society in the 20th century. The writer of this article is rather accurate about the Dutch attitude to religion: having lived in mega-religious countries for the past years, coming home to the Netherlands is a breath of fresh air. The writer is wrong though in thinking that the US approach is healthier: the Dutch being angry about Islamic or Christian or Jewish practices that deny human rights is the proper way to respond to those who believe in badly written books and holier-than-though clergy. The US attitude seems to solely defend religion as such, not bothering with the hurt and pain organized idiocy results in.

Brandeis University caved into pressure from CAIR and the Muslim Student Ass that lied and spinned the situation. Both of these organizations aim to destroy anyone that tells the truth abou the situation of human rights in the Muslim controlled countries as well as among Muslims worldwide. In the past Brandeis has given honorary degrees to many that were against human rights among them the prince of Jordan, Desmond Tutu an outright Anti-Semite and Tony Kushner a self-hatingand anti-zionist Jew that believes Israel was a mistake. Brandeis should be ashamed of its actions. A total disgrace for a University that was created when Jews were not allowed into American Universities in the 1930s and it came into existace with the help of many Jewish scholars, in memory of a Jewish supreme court justice and with Jewish money.

Thanks, TE, for a thought-provoking article. Your point on the American aversion to tarring entire faiths is a good one. The salient lesson seems to be that Americans do well to focus on individual behavior and not group belief. One supposes that this is just another positive achievement that flows from American individualism.

I live in an area with a heavy Muslim population and encounter these people every day. I have never had an unpleasant experience. Occasionally some non-Muslim will write a crank letter to the newspaper warning of Islamofascism and from time to time some imam or the other will try to insert Islam into local law. But, such things are rare.

It is endlessly intriguing how people with a history of mutual hatred, often extending over centuries, emigrate to the USA, live next door to one and another and then borrow each other's lawnmower or knock on the door for a cup of sugar. Once again, this must be due to the American tradition of not recognizing "faiths" -- only the individual and his/her behavior. (Although multi-culturalism DOES threaten to balkanize American life. One more lousy idea from the Left!)

Dutch intolerance makes one wonder at the adoration shown by liberals for these small social democratic states (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland . . . ) Yes, one can open a marijuana bar in Amsterdam and aren't they all sensible, not to mention cute, on their bikes in Copenhagen! Still . . . it seems that when these homogeneous, tiny states face ethnic or religious change it is more than they can handle. It may be that, lacking any meaningful spiritual armature, they recognize they have no counterbalance to, Islam.

Most muslims in the Netherlands are doing ok. But .. there are quite a few muslim immigrants in the Netherlands that are uneducated and fundamentalistic. They don't want to learn the language, they are not planning on integration or giving their children a proper education. They brought a list of demands to their new homeland. They protest Dutch norms and values. They speak out against the western ways, human rights, freedom from religion and gender equality. They loudly advertize their religion and intolerance. Their schools teach fundamentalist religion.
The once beloved and respected secular place for all, is now divided into muslims, very visible by their clothing, and non-muslims.

One of the more sensible and interesting commentaries on this disaster. I'm far from convinced by the bare assertion for instance that "the American model of integration" works better (by what measurements?), though I can see that in the US, religious fundamentalist across religions are more likely to succeed in excluding atheists from public discourse - integration by ganging up on the same "enemy"? In the UK and Netherlands, high profile politicians can be outspoken atheists, impossible in the US.

As for the language of "defeating" a religion, most of the large religions proselyte, no? They all want to "defeat" "false" religions (and even more so, atheists). Ali says nothing else than something all these groups think of and try to do to each other, and as long as no violence is involved, that's fine too. What disturbed Americans is apparently only, as the article hints at, that it comes from a secularist perspective and does not offer its own metaphysics of salvation.

The final section buys into Brandeis spin doctoring. In a press release full of untruth and semi-truth, the alleged "invitation" is just that, insincere spin. Everybody acquainted with academic customs sees it immediately for what it is, proper invitations to be a speaker look very different indeed. Yes, Brandeis could have mitigated the consequences of its sheer incompetence, e.g. by setting up a high profile conference on female genital mutilation and inviting her, expenses paid, as keynote - they did not. This would indeed have been a much better forum than an honorary degree. And yes, there are good reasons against an honorary degree fo her, and yes, that alone would not have been a "silencing". But no, this is also not the issue. The issue is that Brandeis, very publicly, shamed and humiliated her by breaking their word, disinviting her and in their statements attacking her (without right to reply or to being heard) No apology for their own incompetence, the very least civilised people do when they renege on a promise, instead an attack. That behaviour, not the "not giving a degree", is what will have a chilling effect on free speech.

>One sometimes gets the sense that non-religious Dutch are so alienated from religious tradition that they lack empathetic understanding of what belonging to a faith is like.

From where I stand, as a non-religious Dutch person peering back into the darkness of that tradition, this sense is in serious need of enlightenment. We're not straying from the pack: the light is firmly on at our end.

Interesting comparative report, M.S., but I'll also note, despite what you say about the American flavor of tolerance, some liberal-progressives had a go at Mormonism during the last presidential election. Charges of hypocrisy seemed to rein in the behavior, though.

I agree - all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are quite absurd - but, they were born in the "age of ignorance". Mormonism is relatively new. It is as racist as Judaism.

Here are a few quotes from the Mormon texts:

Mary (Jesus's mother) was exceedingly fair and white.

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. 1 Nephi 11:13

Jesus, of course, was as white as his mom, as were his disciples. Indeed, after they were blessed by Jesus, the disciples became whiter than anything else on earth -- as white as Jesus even!

It came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof. 3 Nephi 19:25

And when Jesus had spoken these words he came again unto his disciples; and behold they did pray steadfastly, without ceasing, unto him; and he did smile upon them again; and behold they were white, even as Jesus. 3 Nephi 19:30

The Nephites (God's favorite people) were also white and exceedingly delightsome.

It came to pass that the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply exceedingly fast, and became an exceedingly fair and delightsome people. 4 Nephi 10

Even the Gentiles (white, non-Mormon Protestants in Mormon-speak) were exceedingly fair and beautiful.

And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. 1 Nephi 13:15

But the Lamanites (or Native Americans) were not. They were once "a delightsome people," but God made them a dark-skinned, "filthy and loathsome people, led about by Satan" because of their unbelief and idolatry.

This people ... shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people ... because of their unbelief and idolatry. ... They were once a delightsome people ... But now, behold, they are led about by Satan. Mormon 5:15-18

Still, there is some hope for Native Americans. If they convert to Mormonism, their skins will turn white, and they will become a "delightsome." (The original "white" in this verse was later changed to "pure" to soften the obvious racism of this prophecy.)

And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and delightsome people. 2 Nephi 30:6

It happened before. God removed his curse from the "good" Lamanites (the ones that "united with the Nephites"), and they "became exceedingly fair, with skins "white like unto the Nephites."

It came to pass that those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites; And their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites. 3 Nephi 2:14

And it can happen to you, too. If you turn to God and become Mormon, God will make your skin spotless, pure, fair, and white.

O then ye unbelieving, turn ye unto the Lord; cry mightily unto the Father in the name of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white. Mormon 9:6

So there you have it. According to the Book of Mormon, the whiter the skin, the closer to God!!!!!

I guess I have a huge problem - I do not want to be white - I find the skin color in Asia to be much more attractive and delightsome!!!!!

Whether a religion was born in an older "age of innocence" or in more recent centuries only possibly reflects on the credulity of original adherents. There is no more or less absurdity for contemporary followers.

You do outline a number of troubling passages from Mormonism. I suspect there are some good parts, too.

"I guess I have a huge problem - I do not want to be white - I find the skin color in Asia to be much more attractive and delightsome!!!!!"

Unless this was said completely tongue-in-cheek, you should not worry about your own whiteness, regardless of your sexual attraction mainly (or exclusively) to Asian women. Plenty of Asian women are attracted to men of differing races, so no problem. Everyone should be comfortable in their own skin, including their own skin color, with which nature (or God, if you prefer) has graced us.

Fantastic read.
>why the Netherlands continues to be wracked by tensions over Islam and integration—years after those tensions forced Ms Hirsi Ali herself to leave.
It seems a bit much to condemn one side for hysterics when their opposition outright murders people. I don't know if I could buy the story that American Tolerance is the difference that resulted in the murder of a political activist.
As covered in the Mozilla debate, liberals have no obligation to tolerate the intolerant. The European conservative position seems to be that Islam is intolerant and consequently naturally inclined to resist assimilation in a way that other immigrant cultures are not. They also seem to point out a sort of suicidal multiculturalism that would destroy itself to protect a different viewpoint on the grounds that the viewpoint is foreign and thus equally legitimate.
Also would we say that the sort of Muslim migrants in the US are of the same class and sort as the ones in Europe and the Netherlands? So maybe the conclusion breaks down on this point.

"would we say that the sort of Muslim migrants in the US are of the same class and sort as the ones in Europe and the Netherlands?" - your comment.

An interesting point. I believe there is a significant difference. Muslims migrants to the USA tend to come from a more educated background - i.e., they have to qualify to fulfill US immigration requirements.

In Europe, the situation is very different. Many European countries (including the Netherlands) had overseas colonies. Post-WW2, all of Europe needed manpower for economic revival, owing to the enormous number of people killed in the war. They drew this manpower (skilled and unskilled) from their colonies. I guess it is payback time - having ruled (and exploited) overseas colonies for several centuries, they now have to put up with minority groups from ex-colonies. Sounds fair to me.

You clearly have no clue about history, colonies and European immigration. You also manage to aptly demonstrate your American sense of justice by believing that Americans can do whatever they please, but others should be punished for similar behavior.
Please study your history, try to understand a little of what you are talking about before you gleefully make pronouncements of justice that punish others.